Does it really matter if we call Australian politics ‘semi-parliamentary’?

Australia’s ‘hybrid’ executive-legislative relationship, whereby the two chambers of parliament have distinct and separate powers, has been described in numerous ways, including ‘semi-parliamentarism’. In this, the final of three pieces on the subject, Marija Taflaga argues that the terminology matters, and the term helps both politicians and political scientists clarify how the Australian system works, and understand the political incentives and behaviours it produces

Australian politics shows why the de-separation of political and administrative careers matters for democracy

One cornerstone of executive politics in established liberal democracies has long been a system for controlling government corruption and malfeasance that separates out clear roles for the changing elite of elected politicians and their advisers, and the permanent administrators running the civil service. Yet in Australia Keith Dowding and Marija Taflaga find that the growing role of special advisers, plus increased mobility from adviser roles into career public-service pathways, is now an integral factor in the re-emergence of substantial ministerial scandals

Urban policy

The employment relationship – that between employer and employee – is at the heart of capitalism and a core issue for public policy. Governments create rules, policies and institutions within which employees, their representatives, employers and their representatives, operate. The interest to governments when creating policy includes the form that bargaining takes, wage and employment levels, the nature and effects of contracting and the rights of workers – much of this boiling down to issues of power. In recent decades, major policy issues have included the federal Labor government’s Prices and Incomes Accords in the 1980s and 1990s, the Coalition government’s ‘WorkChoices’ legislation, the shift to enterprise bargaining, and developments in such areas as minimum wages and pay equity. In this chapter we outline the matters at stake, the players, the policy processes and some of the key issues

The Challenges of Transitioning from Opposition to Government: Liberal Party Planning for Government 1983 - 1996

Studies examining opposition transition to government processes and planning usually emphasise the responsibility of oppositions as a legislative institution and the role of party leaders. However, such approaches place too much emphasis on notions of responsible opposition and party leaders. They de-emphasise the importance of partisan considerations that shape transition planning or how party organisations have attempted to assert control over parliamentary parties. Drawing on archival materials, policy documents, and elite interviews, this study examines both public and internal transition to government strategies undertaken by the Liberal Party of Australia during their opposition years (1983–1996). The paper finds that while party leaders became more important over time, the party organisation's involvement remained significant. The Liberal Party transition planning focused primarily on cabinet processes, Australian Public Service (APS) organisation, particularly the senior bureaucratic level, and selecting political staff. In so doing, the Liberal Party anticipated many of the Hawke government's 1987 reforms to the APS. The Liberal Party was motivated by its desire to restructure the machinery and culture of government and to allocate sufficient political staff resources to government. Its aim was to better equip the party to achieve its political and ideological goals when next in government

What's in a name? Semi-parliamentarism and Australian Commonwealth executive-legislative relations

The concept of semi-parliamentarianism provides a parsimonious classificatory description of Australian politics as it is really practiced. This concept encapsulates the tension in Australia's executive-legislative relations: balancing the government's requirement to maintain confidence only within the House of Representatives and the fact of the Senate's equally legitimate powers. In this way, semi-parliamentarianism pin-points the distinction between the Australian and other parliamentary systems. This has implications for the practice of real-world politics because political actors conceptualise and fulfil their roles differently in each chamber. Further, the paper argues that the concept of semi-parliamentarianism reveals why a powerful upper chamber with equal legitimacy transforms politics into a form that is no longer recognisably parliamentary. Finally, the concept of semi-parliamentarism may facilitate a more comprehensive integration of Australian executive-legislative relations into international debates

Politics, Policy Development and Political Communication during Opposition:The Federal Liberal Party of Australia 1983 – 1996 and 2007– 2013

This thesis argues that opposition is an opportunity to study our major political parties in the ‘raw’. Parties without the support of government departments and the resources of incumbency must rely on their own internal structures and the skill set of their Senators and Members of Parliament. It is in opposition that we can truly examine and assess how well party processes function and their capabilities. The Liberal Party of Australia (LPA) represents an interesting case study for parties in opposition because its inexperience at opposition offer political scientists a rare opportunity to observe a party attempting to learn new skill sets. Through an historical comparative study this thesis examines the LPA (and to some extent its coalition partner) in opposition between 1983-1996 and 2007-2013. It examines how, over time, the LPA attempted to prepare itself for government by examining its approach parliament, internal party management, its policy-making processes and political communication strategies. The study draws on several methodological approaches in order to triangulate results — interviews with key actors, private papers maintained by leading Liberal party actors, as well as publicly available documentation and media reports. This study finds that the practice of opposition in intensely political, contrary to most common conceptualisations in the literature. It argues for a more complex understanding of the LPA’s leadership ethos — one that recognises the expectations of shadow ministers and the backbench and the reciprocal nature of the leadership in the LPA. The study also finds evidence of increasing professionalism in the LPA’s use of media since 1983 and the mediatisation of politics. It explores why political parties become mediatised, arguing that the reason lies in party actors’ assumptions about what will help them capture office. The study argues that for most of the 1980s, the LPA aspired to be a credible alternative government and a constructive opposition with thought-out policy proposals. Policy was central to political actors’ assumptions about effective political communication, even if it struggled to achieve this and its resources often proved inadequate to the task. Not until losing the ‘unlosable election’ in 1993 did the LPA abandon policy advocacy as its idealised key strategy for attempting to win office. By contrast, the opposition between 2007 and 2013 (and particularly 2010 to 2013) pursued an overwhelmingly negative approach to opposition designed to destroy the Gillard government’s credibility rather than build up its own.Political actors’ assumptions about the purpose of policy had dramatically altered. Policy was no longer a vital tool to build-up credibility and win office. Instead, actors believed that strategically managing issues in the media was more important. As a result of the hung parliament and the lessons learned from the 1980s, the emphasis of the post-2007 Opposition had shifted to capturing office, because this was considered the most effective way to make political change. Thus, the study demonstrates how the party became increasingly mediatised between 1983 and 1996 and argues that between 2007 and 2013 that the party had internalised ‘media logics’ to the extent where the opposition invested only minimally in policy development during this period and political success was used as a justification for limiting the amount of information given to voters about their intentions for government. This study raises important implications about whether or not parties are adequately preparing for government in opposition

Australian politics enters the big-target era

Different times call for a different kind of campaign strategy John Hewson wanted to run a totally positive election campaign. But when he put it to a vote of his shadow cabinet, he found himself the lone supporter. The Liberal Party went ahead with negative television advertisements and Hewson spent the last weeks of the 1993 campaign at rowdy rallies, spruiking his Fightback! policies. In the dying days of the campaign, amid a light shower of squishy foodstuffs, Hewson had “the catch of the series”: an egg on the fly, just before it could splatter all over his white shirt. Hewson saved the egg but lost the election, and the Coalition joined the Labor Party in its less-is-more approach to campaigning. Policy as political communication, which had broadly defined the Liberal Party’s approach between 1985 and 1993, was largely abandoned by both sides. That kind of detail wasn’t the way to win elections; it exposed oppositions needlessly to the scrutiny of the media and the vast resources of government. Despite the rise of small-target strategies, though, oppositions still liked to boast that they have “the most comprehensive policy plan in living memory,” often with little evidence and a lot of wilful ignorance of their own party’s history. Labor is the latest to make this claim, but with more justification than any opposition since 1993. Why has Labor abandoned the small-target orthodoxy? The reasons lie in the changing incentives at play in our politics… Read the full articl